Broken Grinder Teeth

[dorshak]

Yes, I'd like to know where you bought it and the place.

 

[xander9727]

My contract reads "....not responsible for damage to any hidden conditions, including, but not limited to, underground gas, water, telephone, electric, cable t.v. or other utilities, drains, pipes, wires, septic systems, sprinkler or other irrigation systems. The property owner agrees to inform.......of any hiddne conditions in the tree(s), including, but not limited to, unnatural objects, such as steel posts, cables, metal hooks or attachments. Should the property owner not inform......., the property owner agrees to be liable for any personal or property damage suffered as a result of such hidden or unnatural conditions."

I run the Sandvik wheels on both of my grinder. I don't damage teeth with concrete, bricks, rocks, etc. it's metal that breaks them. I charge $12 per tooth that is damaged. In the last year I have only broken 20 teeth in over $275 hours of grinding.

I have an $80 minimum to go an grind any stump. I charge $3 per inch from 1-30 inches, $4 per inch 31-40 inches, $5 per inch 41-50 inches, $6 per inch 51-60 inches and $7 per inch 61 and over. If you do the math (pi x R squared) you'll find that a 60 inch stump has 4 times the surface area of a 30 inch stump.......and I charge appropriately.

I charge $250 per hour with my large grinder and $150 per hour with my small grinder. I have a $450 minimum for hourly work with the large grinder and a $300 minimum for hourly work with the small grinder.

I've had customers not like the idea of paying for teeth but they have all paid so far. Most under stand that you can't tell if there is a hidden object and many don't want you to lose money.

My $.02

 

[Bigstumps]

I believe you can make those hourly rates, but I find if I quote hourly it scares the H$@# out of the customers. They have no idea how much I can get done. I prefer to quote it on a per job basis and its great to grind them when the customers aren't home. I hate having the "you were only here 45 minutes" conversation when I collect!

 

[Sand Dollar]

Dorshak

Dorshak,

Masters equipment, Mullburry Florida.

 

[Sand Dollar]

Xander9727

Xander9727,

I wish I could charge here in Florida what you charge. Here it is a 1.25 per In max. Everyone has a grinder even lawn services have them. There is one service that has most of the work. He has ben around for a long time. Any suggestions on how I can get tree companies to use my service. I have called all of them out of the phone book, Sat at the Dump waiting for them to drop off refuse, and sent mailers to all of them.

Anything else you can think of?

 

[xander9727]

Try and get in contact with the guys who work for the bigger companies. Quite often they do side work. Most don't own chippers or stump grinders. They may send the stumps your way to take care of their customer better........and to keep their boss from finding out they are side lining.

 

[Menchhofer]

In my experience, charging by the inch simply does not work.

When giving an estimate, I do not tell the customer how long it will take, I KNOW the length of time needed to grind a particular stump and calculate @ $150 per hour 1 hour minimum. I simply give them the price based on the hourly rate. This has worked fine for me.



And yes there is always the guy that will canvas a neighborhood looking for stumps and remove them for a fraction of what I charge..usually giving the customer poor service with regards to removing the entire stump.

 

[Bigstumps]

In my experience, charging by the inch simply does not work.

When giving an estimate, I do not tell the customer how long it will take, I KNOW the length of time needed to grind a particular stump and calculate @ $150 per hour 1 hour minimum. I simply give them the price based on the hourly rate. This has worked fine for me.

Same way I do it!!

 

[ABC Stump]

Same way I do it!!

I do the same but I run into a problem when the job has lots of stumps.....like 50 or even 100. I like the smaller jobs like 1 to 10 stumps. We still have stumps from hurricane Rita and some folks still have a lot of stumps. How do ya'll handle the biding for many, many stumps? I may charge $50 - $75 for 1 stump but obviously cant do that for 100 stumps.

 

[Bigstumps]

I still look at the amount of time involved. My figured "hourly rate" goes down since I won't have any travel time. I try to make $100/hour on these jobs. Usually these customers with the larger jobs will try to get a bunch of quotes since they are spending more so I know I have to be competitive.

On these larger "clearing" jobs I always discuss how deep they want them ground. I don't want to be quoting 8" deep when they want them just below the ground. I also make sure the customer knows not all my competitors always go below ground. This also gives the customer a sense I am looking out for them.

On these bigger jobs my competitors that only have small machines can't compete. If they do get the jobs they are tied up for a week!!

 

[ABC Stump]

I try to average the same per hour as you but with my smaller machine, Rayco 1625, it's difficult on larger jobs. I'm looking at a job now that has 100 pine stumps ranging from 6" to 24". The customer is not too concerned with depth, they just want to be able to level out the land without damaging their box blade. I doubt however that I can make $100/hour on a job this size with my machine but I sure wouldn't want to pass it up. Competition in my area is fairly high.